


nine of swords

by legendofkuvira (jephaway)



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bad ending Au, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 22:51:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11323362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jephaway/pseuds/legendofkuvira
Summary: The battle is over. Lucretia mourns. Magnus is the rock.You've Unlocked: The Worst Ending





	nine of swords

**Author's Note:**

> This is a gift to @maegnus on tumblr (again) for literally inspiring me to be the worst fanfic author ever and post this on the internet for everyone to read.

The silence following the battle is deafening, and Lucretia wonders for a moment if she’s died. Her vision swims and she feels like she’s been struck with something hard in the back of the head. When her eyes readjust to the light, she finds that she’s not dead. She’s very, very alive. And for a split second she’s grateful. She survived. The Hunger couldn’t kill an old woman. And then she sees that she’s standing in a room and not on the battlefield. An alarmingly familiar room, all white, with a wide window staring out into the depth of space. And around the room, situated perfectly, are Taako, Magnus, Merle, Lup, and Barry. If Lucretia turned her head slightly to the left, she would see Davenport piloting the ship.  

_Oh no._

Slowly, Lucretia lifts a hand to touch her face. She finds it devoid of the deep wrinkles that had set into her cheeks and around her eyes. When she looks down at her hands, they’re smooth, unscarred and callous free. These are hands that have not known war, or strife. These hands have not borne the burden of Madame Director. _What did she do wrong?_

The room around her fills with sounds- the twins and the lovers reunited after twelve years.

“I should have looked harder.”

“We found each other, didn’t we? We always have.”

A terrible scream rips through her body and Lucretia falls to her knees, pulling on the crimson fabric of her cursed red robe. Everything she worked for had been lost. The BoB was _gone_ and so were the relics, and her staff, and the Voidfish. And she had lost all those years- twelve years, plus the twenty taken from her in Wonderland. She had finally been allowed to become an old woman, and now she was trapped in her old self again- still a teenager, still running. Her head feels like it’s full of water. Maybe she’s going into shock. Maybe she just needs to cry. Lucretia chokes on her tears, presses her palms flat against the cold floor, wishing to melt into it. And someone kneels in front of Lucretia, slides their arms around her, and pulls her to their chest. Lucretia can tell just from the smell that it’s Magnus. Her rock. Her best friend, her-

“Lucretia, hey. It’s okay, I’m here.” Magnus rubs her back with one hand and, while it’s meant to be comforting, it only cements the feeling of guilt growing in her chest. He _shouldn’t_ be here. They should be on the moon, battling the Hunger, saving the world. She should have destroyed the damn ship when she had the chance. And now- it’s gone. Twelve years of hard work just _vanished_.

She presses a palm against his chest and slowly curls it into a fist. “Everything is- it’s _gone_. It’s all _gone._ ”

“Shh, I know.”

“How could you _possibly_ -“ Lucretia lifts her head to look at Magnus, and the first glimpse of that stupid black eye fills her body with the deepest sensation of grief that a living creature could possible feel. “My life- my _work_. Everything, everyone- it’s all _gone_ Magnus. _They’re_ all gone. Carey and Killian and Avi and Johann and- and-” Lucretia’s breath hitches, her voice cracks- “ _Angus_.”

A tear falls from Magnus’s right eye. He moves his hands from Lucretia’s back and gently wrap them around hers. “I know how it feels when you can’t save the people who matter most.”

Lucretia can tell from his face, from the glazed over look and the lack of eye contact, that he’s thinking about Julia, and how could she be so _stupid_. Of course Magnus knows, of course he does. Ravensroost. Julia. How _stupid_. Magnus is a hero who had lost everything and everyone he had ever cared about. Lucretia had betrayed her best friends, lied to them, hid from them for twelve years. All of this was a result of her own cowardice. If she hadn’t been so afraid, maybe Angus-

"Luc, look at me.” She can barely look Magnus in the eye. “We lost this time but it- it wasn’t for nothing. They didn’t die for nothing.”  

“We’ve lost over a hundred times, Magnus.” Lucretia’s voice cracks again. “We can’t keep doing this forever. _I_  can’t-“

Magnus reaches up and cups Lucretia’s cheek, gently nudging for her to look at him. His other hand remains atop hers, trying to comfort her. “I know, I know, but listen, we can’t give up. We’ve known each other for a century now, Luc. I saw you when we first started out, I saw you after the year of Judgement, and I saw you as Madame Director. I know you. I know how much you’re capable of. You can’t give up, okay? We can do it. We have Lup back, and we’ve got our old bodies back, and we’re a team again. Just believe okay?”

Lucretia wipes a tear from her cheek, suddenly feeling foolish for the tears that continue to fall. “You’re right, but I- I promised the Bureau that they were helping protect the world and I- I let them all down, Magnus. I failed them. Angus he- he was just a _boy_.”

“You’re right. That… that will hurt for a long time, Lucretia. I won’t lie to you. But we have to keep fighting for him, okay?”

There’s something about Magnus that makes Lucretia believe him. She didn’t give up when she was alone, she didn’t give up when they were all dead. She had to keep fighting, she had to keep going. The Hunger wasn’t going to stop so neither would she. She no longer has the body of Madam Director, but she still has the mind. She still has the willpower to do whatever it takes to stop the Hunger. 

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Magnus presses a kiss against Lucretia’s forehead and helps her to her feet. The others have all stopped in their reunions, seeming to have taken in the situation that they are now in. Their world has ended, again, and now they need to keep going. Lucretia looks at them all and feels that grief start to crawl out of her throat. They all look exactly how she remembered.

“I’m _so_ sorry.” Lucretia says, squeezing Magnus’s hand. “I tried _so_ hard to prevent this, and- and now we have to keep going. We are the only people who can stop this. I- I know it’s been a long time. A hundred and twelve years is a _long_ time and some of us- it’s going to be hard to move on from the last cycle. We loved a lot of people, we called it home. We called _them_ home.”

Taako’s ears flatten and dip downward. Merle wipes his eyes. They all had family in Faerun.

Magnus picks up where Lucretia left off. “Which is- which is why we have to keep fighting. We can’t lose anyone else, and we can’t- we can’t let their lives be wasted. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m tired of losing people. We know what we need now and we _can_ beat the Hunger. Remember the people that we lost and _fight_ for them- Carey, Killian, Avi, Johann. Kravitz. Mavis and Mookie. _Angus McDonald_.”

As if on cue, the door at the end of the room slides open and everyone turns to look. Standing in the doorway in cracked glasses and a torn sweater vest, a small wand clutched tightly in his fist, is Angus McDonald, boy detective. He points his wand at the group, shaking.

“Someone tell me what’s going on right now. Who are you people? Where am I?”

**Author's Note:**

> Rules? What rules? 
> 
> Did you really think I was going to let Ango McDonald, boy detective, die? Never. Honestly, though, this might be worse.


End file.
